Inside the Spin-Mosaic Studio

There are places we feel safe. To an artist; running to colors and running to pictures is a form of safe place.

I suspect I am the only parent whose kids have ever had tantrums, but when my son, Brandon, was much younger, there was one special place he would run. This was his safe place. Tantrums usually involved the need to transition him from an activity of play to an activity of duty. Any feelers, here? He liked that corner between the wall and the couch.

My husband watched a YouTube video this morning narrated by a mouse-catching enthusiast. As it turns out, a full-grown mouse can squeeze through spots the size of a quarter and flatten himself like a paranormal pancake. That's how my son fits between the gray couch and the gray wall. He comes out when he's ready and that's okay sometimes.

These "Creativity IQ 30-Days" posts have currents of truth running through each activity that provide more than a hand's on art "project". Part of empowering parents of creative kids is helping to translate the heart of an artist.

Brandon is an artist at heart. When he runs to his safe spot; he often takes his crayons along with him. That's okay, too.

My daughter speaks fluent Spanish. As part of her college major completion, it was necessary to immerse in a Spanish culture for a semester. Ecuador became her 2nd home for 6 months. All to say, even the experts recognize that a language cannot be understood full until context is understood experientially.

Artists, young artists, and exceptionally creative kids speak more than a language of words. When words become understood and language becomes fluent, artists then become--bilingual. Follow me, if you will.

The first language of an artist-at-heart is the language of color and visual stimuli. It makes them (us) feel calm and safe. Arranging strings of words together to form and relay interactive meaning comes 2nd or 3rd or 4th in sensory development. True, all these ultimately go together hand-in-hand to create the unique sensory perception of each individual, but the order and preference chain is different for the creative'.

Artists think in color; not black and white. We are subjective; not objective. We prefer to dance when others sit. We prefer parable, analogy, and narrative over any pragmatic approach in the book. 

The most significant orator in history spoke in parable. "Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable." -- Matthew 13:34.

I have a hunch that Jesus knew there a lot more creative-types in the crowds than anyone guesses to self-analyze. Why? Because Jesus told lots of stories. He knew we are all creative. We are creative because we are created in the image of a creative God who first identifies Himself in Genesis as the artist of all creation. We were creatively created creative and all the full-sensory implications and preference chains of language that go with it.

His way was a story-telling way. Analogy touches personal needs while making a corporate connection with whoever is in the room. Or, as the stories in the Bible go; on the hillside with 5,000 others. The door of meaning is left open-ended enough for a broad application. The term in our early millennium is "bandwidth". Parable has the broadest bandwidth.

A parable tells a story. A story cannot be told without a picture forming in our mind's eye. Each mind's picture is a little different because our background, personal experiences, and associations are different. When hearing and applying a story, our brains turning into mini-art studios.

I have had several mini art studios in and outside of my mind's imagination. The first was the corner of my mother's studio when I was a little girl. My mother was an artist. Some of my earliest memories were simply watching, wondering, and waiting while she worked on a canvas---very quietly.

I watched my mother's back from the corner of her studio. The corner of her studio became my "mini-studio". I had my crayons, just like Brandon has his behind the gray couch. My mother's arms dipped low to a board with spots of color, then her arm swooped high and dabbed onto an upright canvas. I have no memory of words during those painting and watching sessions; only colors.

She painted quietly. I played quietly. Sometimes she would let me dab the leftover colors from her board onto newspapers. Never happier.

Stronger than the smell of oil paints and terpentine, and more vivid than the colors of the ocean waves, windy fields, or red barns she painted was the memory of the silence. It was a good silence; a peaceful silence; a safe silence. She never asked me to be quiet; we just were...quiet together.  I watched the colors form on her canvas and that was enough for me. My heart was full. Colors blending, shapes forming, the shifting squeak of her chair and the whispering whir of the brush strokes...left no room for words. Thank you, Mom, for including me. 

Once in a while, I see an art piece that takes me back there---to a personified place where the trinity of color, form, and story are so lacking of nothing that there is neither need nor room to clutter the new acquaintance with "hellos" or any of the formalities that follow after. I just stared at this gorgeous blue embrace.

This piece was like that. I met Angie Gunther through her work. In our culture, it is a social norm for compliments to spill over when our hearts are touched---not in the purest form of authenticity. I was speechless. This picture of quiet love was so complete there was no room for words.

I love her profile picture so much. She is holding her dog in her arms the same way the chimp is holding it's baby.

"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love..." -- Zephaniah 3:17

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Creativity IQ Activity #27: Mixed Media

The term "mixed media" is an official category within juried exhbits, college classes, and artwork tagging. It means "a little bit of everything." Mixed media is a melting pot of media and technique.

Media is what you make art with: crayons, colored pencils, oil pastels, markers, watercolor, tempera, oil...

Technique is what your hands do with that media: your special treatment, twist, or secret sauce to get a certain effect: scratching, painting with a knife, layering paper for collage... the sky is the limit.

Angie's approach is unique. I'm not going to tell you how she does it. I'm not going to ask her how she does it; it is her propriety secret that flows from the giftings God gave her. It feels "right" to her. I suspect it also feels safe and when she paints, words may fall away into quiet.

What's the activity? This is where you as a parent/teacher/empowerer go beyond where the average classroom or even art classrooms often go. Get out everything. Let your young artist choose their own subject, then fill the paper with as many different medias as you have available. At least three dry media are common in most children's toolbox: crayon, marker and colored pencil. Use all three instead of just one. Technique and exploration is often discovered in the form of layering, scratching through surfaces, or adding onto surfaces like collage.

Explore, experiment. Mix it up. Find your safe place. There are no right or wrong answers here! You may notice how quietly your young artist works. Art is calming. Art is a safe place. Let it be that.

Stay Creative! Have Fun! I would love to see your creations!

--Mrs. Z

*Special thanks to Angie Gunther of Germany. You know I loooooooove your work. I could feel a hug from God in their embrace!